


the time will come (when all the waiting's done)

by AndreaLyn



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, M/M, Podding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-30
Updated: 2020-05-30
Packaged: 2021-03-03 03:47:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24448321
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AndreaLyn/pseuds/AndreaLyn
Summary: Michael has been irreversibly aged down to eleven, just as he and Alex were starting their lives together. Unwilling to give up his second chance, Alex uses alien technology to suspend himself for nineteen years.They both wait, in different ways, for their second chance.
Relationships: Michael Guerin/Alex Manes
Comments: 64
Kudos: 214





	the time will come (when all the waiting's done)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [el_gilliath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/el_gilliath/gifts).



> THANK YOU CHRISTI for the beta! Title and inspiration for this fic comes from Connie Francis' [I Will Wait For You](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mi57d50pCUw).
> 
> For Tove. Thank you for beta'ing my opus. Thank you for your encouragement. Thank you for making this fic exist at all. I hope you enjoy!

_The Day Of_

“It’s not fair. It’s not _fucking_ fair!”

Michael’s small frame trembles with rage, along with the environment around him. Every rock on the ground shakes like an earthquake has seized the ground from under them and wary glances are being thrown to the ceiling, like Michael’s fury might cause it to cave in. 

They’d been in the second facility. They were there to take apart a genetically coded bomb.

Instead, some of Jesse’s men had grabbed Michael and dragged him off and altered his genetic code, stripping years off his life with the help of their technology and a brainwashed alien, only stopping when Max and Alex found them, arresting the process before they could take Michael apart, rendering him into nothing but atoms. 

Now, he’s eleven, stuck in a child’s body with his adult mind.

He’s irreversibly eleven. 

No, Alex thinks. It really isn’t fucking fair, especially when they finally found their way back to one another six months ago. Max and Isobel are trying to calm him down, but it’s Alex whose nerves are on edge, standing near the front of the cave with Maria. 

“Are you sure about this, Alex? We’re talking about nineteen years.”

“It took us thirteen years to get back to each other,” Alex says. “You would have done the same.”

She gives him an uneasy look. “I’m not sure I would have,” Maria says quietly. “We ran our course. We tried, again and again. Loving Michael might be the easiest thing for you, but loving the idea of him was easier for me and that’s not something I’d give up my mother and the Pony for. It’s not something I’m ready to blink and lose nineteen years for. This is about us. I’m about to lose you, Alex.”

Alex lets out a deep breath because the thing is, he knows he made his decision when Liz first floated the idea. “We’ve had six months together and I know that this is it. He’s it for me, Maria,” Alex says, staring at the way Michael is bristling with energy nearby, his whole body shaking with rage. “Kyle’s going to keep an eye on my father’s projects and when I’m out of the pod, I’ll take over the baton. You’ll all be…”

“Forty nine,” she fills in the blanks. “I’m going to miss you.”

“I’m coming back, just think of it like another few tours with the Air Force,” Alex says, trying to muster up a smile.

Is he trying to convince her? Or himself?

He’s not going to feel it, but Michael will. Maybe Alex will come out of that pod and Michael will have changed his mind. Maybe he’s doing this for nothing, but the hopeful part of his heart sings with the prayer that it won’t be. Still, when Maria hugs him, he holds her a little tighter, scared that when he does come out the other side, he’ll be waking up to a frightening new world. 

Turning back towards the pod, he sees Michael fidgeting beside it, his nerves clearly getting the better of him now that Max and Isobel have calmed his anger. Alex pulls away from Maria and begins his walk towards the pod, to Michael, and to the decision he’s made.

The steps towards him feel endless. His legs ache, a psychological affliction, because each step that takes him closer to Michael is a step closer to a decision he’s not sure anyone else would have made.

It’s stupid and short-sighted and it could go so wrong.

And yet, it’s hopeful and romantic and Alex feels like any other decision feels too much like giving up.

Eventually, he runs out of steps to take.

“Are you sure about this?” Alex asks when Michael finally stops avoiding looking at him, those baleful young eyes staring up at him with regret and pain. “I’ll be frozen. You’ll be the one with a life. You could start over, Michael. You could have a better life.”

“I don’t want that life,” Michael says, his voice too-small, too-high, too- _wrong_. “I’ll wait for you. I want to wait for you, I want us to be together. I’ll wait. Please,” he begs. “Believe me, I’ll wait.”

“I thought that was my job.”

Michael is too small. He’s the young boy that Alex remembers meeting all those years ago, but the chasm between them is too large, and that’s what they’re here to solve.

Alex stares at the pod that will do that for them. 

He’ll be safe and stopped in Michael’s pod. Even though time won’t move for him, he’ll be secure and safe within the same pod that kept Michael alive for fifty years. He’s hoping that the calculations are correct and a human will be fine inside it for nineteen, seeing as it had preserved Rosa well enough and she’d been in a broken version. 

“Let’s do it,” Alex decides. “Michael…”

“Okay.” Michael stares at him, wringing his hands. “Let’s talk.”

They step to the side and hash out details that feel odd to discuss with someone so young, but it’s necessary. They talk duration, they talk permissions, and in the end, Alex pulls Michael into his arms. It’s not the hug he wants, but it’s the one he can give. It’s the hug that Michael never got the first time around.

By the time Alex turns, his cheeks are tear-stained, his eyes dull. 

“You have to strip, Alex,” Liz says apologetically. 

“I can go,” Michael offers, as Maria pulls on his shoulders to tug him back against her, stroking his hair. He’s crying, too, big gasping sobs that he’s trying to hide (poorly). 

Alex shakes his head, his chest hurting like there’s a weight on it. “Nothing you haven’t seen before,” he jokes, trying to inject some levity into the moment. He accepts Liz’s hand to settle on a large stone, reaching down to take off his prosthetic, which he hands over to her. 

“I’ll keep it safe,” she vows, her voice soft. 

Michael’s still shaking when Alex looks over, having turned to press his face against Maria’s stomach, as if not seeing the pain in his features is going to help. Alex hates to say it, but it does. He slowly rolls off his sock and folds it, carefully, before setting it on the rock beside him. His jacket is next, which Liz takes too, promising to give the leather jacket to Michael when he’s old enough. 

His navy blue henley is folded and placed on top of the pile, along with his jeans and his underwear. Fully naked, he goes red knowing that he has an audience, even though Max and Isobel are waiting outside. It’s only Maria and Liz, only Michael, but he feels more vulnerable than ever before in his life. His ass is cold on the stone, but he can’t move until he’s prepared, seeing as a one-legged naked idiot on the ground of the cave isn’t what he wants Michael’s last memory to be.

Liz crouches in front of him, coating her palms in the liquid as she brushes it over his shoulders, his chest, sliding it over his hands. Her fingers are trembling and she’s avoiding looking at him.

“You’ll take care of him.”

It’s not a question. He’s going to wait, but he needs to know Michael won’t relive the same life. 

She nods, glancing to the side, where Michael is watching, once more.

“Of course,” she vows. “I think Max already has a detailed plan.”

Alex wants to laugh, wants to smile, but he can’t. He knows the risks of this, but irreversibly eleven doesn’t exactly give him many options. He feels sick to his stomach and hates that this is the choice he’s actively making, but he knows it’s the right one. 

“Love him like crazy until I can get back and do it,” he says, his voice rough, making sure he speaks loud enough for Michael to hear him. Liz cups her palms in the silver mixture and pushes his hair back over his face, coating every inch of his skin as she holds her hand out to him, helping him towards the pod.

Michael finally drifts away from Maria, helping by taking hold of Alex’s other hand, giving him support as he moves closer to the pod.

“It’s not forever,” Alex says to Michael, turning to face him as he feels the pull of the pod, as if like calling to like, wanting to absorb him in.

Michael peers miserably at him. “It’ll only feel like it.”

Alex stares at this young boy, full of promise and hope, a chance to live a happy life. Maybe Alex wakes up and he’s part of it, or maybe he wakes up and his duty will be to caretake a legacy devoted to making sure no other alien suffers the way Michael’s family has. Either way, he’s made his decision.

“I love you, Michael. Remember that, always.”

Michael’s nod is a steady and sure thing. “Until you’re holding me, until you’re back beside me.”

“I’ll wait for you,” are Alex’s last words, echoing a song he’s sung to Michael in the Wild Pony -- the start of how they got back together, a proclamation of the heart. He inhales deeply, one last breath, and then --

He

w a i t s.

* * *

_Stasis - Year One_

“What if I don’t want to be Michael Evans?”

“As far as the world knows, you’re twelve years old, Michael. You’re not going into the system,” Max says, “and the papers are already drawn up. Liz and I are adopting you.”

“Are you fucking serious? I don’t need parents!”

“Yeah, you do! You’re _twelve_!”

There are a thousand arguments he should try. He didn’t forget how to care for himself, he’s just small, but reality quickly crashes in on him. Where would he get cash? Where would he live? How would he survive? He could try and go to Sanders, who’d take him in this time, but his health is declining and Michael doesn’t want to be a burden on him. Each additional epiphany is a crushing blow that has Michael quickly realizing he can argue as much as he wants, but there’s no other good option.

He feels weak and pathetic, but he tamps down his rage until he’s shaking with it, a fury that he knows will come out later with his powers.

“Fine! I don’t like it!”

“You don’t have to,” Max snipes back. “You’re still Michael Evans and you’re our family.”

It feels counterintuitive to fight it. This time, he’s been picked. He has parents (or a reasonable equivalent) who want to take care of him.

So, why is he so angry?

(He knows why, he knows -- this should have happened the first time, this shouldn’t have happened at all, they should be peers with them, him and Alex, not a pseudo-son while Alex lies in wait, he’s furious, he’s full of rage, and he’s…)

He’s Michael Evans.

He’s part of a family

* * *

_Stasis - Year Two_

“Don’t even think about making me do it.”

“Michael, you have to go to school.”

He gives Liz a disbelieving look, and since he’s thirteen right now, he’s glad that he’s aware that it absolutely is the bitchiest, most unhappy thing that anyone can muster. “My brain is still my adult alien genius brain, you want me to go sit inside Roswell _Middle School_ so I can deal with teenage hormones and rampant stupidity?”

For the most part, they let him run free with his attitude, but today Liz isn’t having it. She slams a heavy stack of textbooks down on the table in front of him, which Michael has to tilt his head to read the titles.

_An Introduction to Modern Stellar Astrophysics_

_Astrophysics for Physicists_

_Cosmic X-Ray Astronomy_

_Origin And Evolution Of Planetary And Satellite Atmospheres_

“Oh,” is all he says, like he hadn’t even considered this. Here, he’d been thinking about them forcing him to go learn about geography and politics and wear shitty shorts and participate in gym class. Instead, Liz is telling him to go do what he’s good at.

She gives his hair a light ruffle. “You have to go to school,” she repeats. “The right school for you. The one you should have gone to the first time.” She leaves on that note, knowing she’s got him and had the upper hand the whole time. 

Michael spreads out the textbooks on the table, letting his fingers drift from one to the other, amazed and in awe. 

He’s going to school.

He’s going to the school he’s _supposed_ to go to, and when Alex gets out, this time, he’ll be the man that Alex wanted him to be.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Four_

“Youngest person in the state with a masters,” Max boasts as he lifts a beer. 

Michael has sneakily used logic to get his way and have one too, even if he’s still only physically fifteen, but he’s mentally so much older, and he has an undergrad _and_ a masters. If ever he deserves a beer, it’s now. 

Four years of long distance learning, a dash of Isobel’s influence to make sure he could write his exams in Roswell, and a healthy helping of Liz’s fervent enthusiasm means that he’s got his undergrad and his masters, all at the age of fifteen. 

The diploma came in today and Michael’s been treating it reverently.

It’s only a piece of paper. He knows that, but somehow it feels like so much more.

“I’m so proud of you, Mikey,” Liz says, hugging him tightly. “ _Mijo_ , you did so well.”

He rolls his eyes, because even though Liz and Max recently married, even though the name on the diploma says Michael Ortecho-Evans, he isn’t _really_ their son. Still, Liz gets like this sometimes and Michael wants to squirm out of her hold. 

Sometimes, he wonders if the longer he’s this young, the more they forget about his older self.

“I’m not really fifteen,” he spits at them, teenage hormones belying his statement. He’s all rage and anger, even with a good family. 

“Michael,” Max protests, “We…”

“No, shut up!” He’s ruining the celebratory toast, and he can see the way Maria and Isobel are staring at him with shock. “You’re not my parents! You’re not my family, I don’t _need_ any of you! I’m an adult, I can make my own decisions. You weren’t there for me the first time, stop overcompensating now!”

He doesn’t smash his bottle of beer, but he does slam it onto a table as he storms into the house and his bedroom, burying his face in his pillow as he screams, like that’s the only way he’s going to get his anger out.

Michael might have his memories and his adult brain, but his emotions and his body are fifteen and right now, they’re not letting him forget it. 

He stays there, shaking and grieving for his old life, fear beginning to creep in that he’s ruined the one good thing he’s got going for him. 

Later that evening, he creeps out of his room like the recalcitrant and guilty party he is. He finds Liz and Max curled up together on the porch swing. Grabbing a thick blanket from the couch, he heads out to join them, nervous that his outburst will be the reason that they ask him to leave. He’s fifteen. The first time around, he’d lived out of his truck around now. He’s old enough now that there’s every chance they ask him to go.

“I didn’t mean it,” he says quietly. “Earlier.”

He’s not sure he can actually apologize. This is the best he can do.

“We’re sorry too,” Liz replies, as if she can read between the lines. “We know this must be strange for you and we know that we’re not really your parents, but Max and I, sometimes we forget. We’re so proud of you, Michael,” she insists. “Seeing your name in the news receiving prizes and awards and scholarships, we’re just so _proud_.”

Something flickers on her face, like uncertainty, and Max seems to understand that he needs to take over.

He squeezes her hand, giving Michael an apologetic look. “We can back off, if you want.”

Does he want them to?

Michael takes the last few steps forward and curls up in the space beside Liz, wrapping them up in the blanket as he curls into her side. “No,” is his quiet reply. “I want a family,” is his honest confession. “I want you guys to be my family,” feels like the more important confession. 

Liz says nothing, but he sees the way she smiles in the moonlight -- relieved, loving, and happy.

He’d never admit it out loud, but it’s exactly what he’s feeling too.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Six_

“The first time around, this is how old we were when I fell for you, when I first started looking at you.”

In the pod, Alex is peaceful and unmoving. He has no idea how desperate Michael feels to hold him again, to be able to kiss him, to prove that they’ll get it right this time.

“Everyone around me is falling in love, planning their lives, but I’ve had mine planned since you went in the pod. My hand is fine this time, it never needed to be healed. When you come out of this pod, I’m going to hold you so damn close and kiss you until you can’t breathe. That’s just the first part of the plan.”

He’s absently sketching in his notepad as he speaks, his shoulder pressed up against the pod like he can get closer by curling up against the pod.

“I plan to love you for the rest of our lives. I plan to make you the happiest man alive. I plan to propose to you, and at the wedding, I want to see you playing your guitar at the reception and singing to me, because you feel safe to do it. I’m gonna hold you forever, when you’re back beside me.”

He’s seventeen, but he’s without Alex.

It’s not right.

And yet, he’s still too young. He can’t take Alex out, not yet. 

So, he waits.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Seven_

At eighteen, there’s no mistaking it -- Michael Ortecho-Evans looks a _lot_ like the former Michael Guerin. His shoulders have begun to broaden once more and while they keep his face clean and his hair cut so it doesn’t curl, the resemblance is still uncanny.

It’s why Isobel’s done something about it, and it’s why Michael’s feeling so unsteady. 

As always, when he feels shaken, he ventures out to the caves.

He’s here, because this is where the pods are.

He comes for Alex.

“I saw Isobel use her powers on the whole town today at the drive-in, it was creepy as hell.”

The necessity doesn’t take away from how much it had shaken Michael to the core.

“I know she’s been practicing using her powers. She hasn’t made that a secret, but you should have seen her. She ran this event for the town and made sure that everyone was there, then she had them all in thrall. All of them,” Michael says, drawing the alien symbol on Alex’s pod as he speaks, something to keep him occupied. “They sat there, like lemmings waiting for their orders, while she told them that Michael Guerin didn’t exist.”

Maybe that’s what’s got him so unsteady.

In one fell swoop, Isobel rewrote his history so that he didn’t exist as the man he once was. The trucker’s last name stripped from him, a whole sad history gone. He’d begged her not to do it to Sanders or any of their friends, but for the rest of the town, no protection had been given.

In a matter of minutes, Michael Guerin vanished, and Michael Ortecho-Evans took his place. 

She hadn’t said it, but Michael suspects that she hadn’t stopped there.

“I don’t know if she unwrote you too,” Michael says quietly. “I don’t have the balls to ask Jesse how many sons he has.”

The truth is that Michael’s scared, but relieved. He’s spent years worrying about the shadow looming over them that is their past lives, but if Isobel has erased that from the minds of everyone but their friends, it’s up to them to rewrite who they want to be, together.

It’s a shame it took the equal of an alien psychic nuclear bomb to do it. 

“I’m not myself, not really, but one thing hasn’t changed.”

Of this, he’s certain.

“I still haven’t looked away.”

* * *

_Stasis - Year Eight_

“I’m starting to get why Liz hates the assholes in town so much.”

Michael pries off the antenna bouncing around his head. Arturo had retired last year, but Rosa had been determined to have a career of her own. Liz would never allow Rosa’s destiny to be diminished, even if it meant taking on the diner herself to carry on Arturo’s legacy. 

He glares down at his green uniform, sinking down onto his sulking rock -- dubbed that by Isobel when she’d caught him in here, in the throes of teenage hormones, ranting to Alex about chafing from jerking off too much.

“I have a doctorate! I’m smarter than them! And all they care about is their stupid burger being undercooked.” Michael shakes his head. “ _¡Hijo de la chingada!_ I hate them all.” 

He’s in the middle of his second degree, helping out at the Crashdown while he studies. It seems pointless to make plans for his life without Alex, because until he’s thirty years old, Michael’s life isn’t truly going to begin. 

He could change his mind. He could break his promise.

Michael’s done more than enough of that over the years, though. This time is different. This time, he’s not going to give Alex one single goddamn reason to walk away. It’s Michael’s turn to prove that he loves Alex and he doesn’t care that it’ll take nineteen years.

Glancing down at his little tunic-like uniform and the black leggings under, he gives the pod a rueful smile. “I can’t wait to show you pictures of this,” he says, laughing. “I look ridiculous, but it didn’t stop some of the local girls from flirting with me. I’m apparently fashion-forward,” he quips. As ever, just talking to himself in Alex’s vicinity has calmed him down.

It always helps to remind himself what’s important.

“I love you, Alex,” he says, not for the first time, never the last. “I love you, and I can’t wait until you’re back to face these idiots in town with me.”

* * *

_Stasis - Year Nine_

There’s Andrea -- she wears cowboy boots and her blonde hair is like a halo when they line dance. They go on two dates, both at the Pony where adult supervision watches over him like hawks.

There’s Nate -- he’s sweet and funny and shorter than Michael, and they make out a few times in Michael’s bedroom, where Max raps his knuckles on the door and has to awkwardly ask if everything is okay in there.

There are a few others that come that year. He’s twenty and he’s tried to bury his physical need with maternal embraces from Liz, cuddling up with Isobel while they watch movies, and even the affection Max is learning to give. 

There’s Ursula and Theresa and Ben. 

In the end, none of them are Alex. 

And so, there are no more after that.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Ten_

“Rosa had a _kid_ , Alex, you should see the baby. Liz is going crazy with the aunt thing and I’ve got a cousin now, he’s so tiny.”

Michael’s shoulder is leaning against the pod as he uses his powers to knit a baby cap for little Alejandro, pretending like he can feel Alex’s warmth against his shoulder, as if Alex can hear any of this. 

“It caused a huge fight for me and Max and Liz, though. I asked what they were waiting for, why they weren’t having kids of their own. Max didn’t even say anything, just stormed off.” His jaw tightens and he thinks he knows why, even though they haven’t admitted it to him. “I don’t … I don’t think I really understood until now that I was their kid,” he admits.

In retrospect and with some time, it’s clearer to see.

Max’s pride in his accomplishments, how he’d come home from parent-teacher nights beaming. The way shooting dishes had ventured back into the normal routine of their lives. 

And Liz.

She’s still just _Liz_ to him, but her maternal influence is clear.

“I think I get it,” he admits, even if his voice sounds raw now that he’s worked himself towards the truth. “I get it, because they’ve never pretended that I was waiting for other parents, better ones. They don’t need kids of their own because they have one.”

 _Him_. 

Michael Ortecho-Evans is enough. He’s good for someone and they’re good for him.

“Anyway, they named him after you, but I’m the godfather,” he boasts proudly. “I guess they trust me with the kid after all.” He reaches out for the knitting needles to hold the tiny woollen hat in his cupped hands, feeling a twinge for his own family, his own future, his own chance to make a family for himself with Alex at his side.

Eight more years.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Twelve_

“Michelle Valenti died this week. She was responding to a call and some junkie stabbed her with a knife. Kyle’s really messed up. I’m pretty sure he wants you around, even if he’s not saying it. I’m…”

Michael grimaces, pressing his lips together, working these uncomfortable words out. Twenty-three and things with Kyle still seem complicated. 

“I’m trying to be there in your place, but I know Kyle doesn’t want to say it, but he misses you.” 

Kyle’s been supportive of him, keeping an eye out for him, and thanks to his depth of knowledge when it comes to alien anatomy, has been Michael’s dedicated doctor over the years while they wait to see if Jesse’s experiment has any side effects. Still, without Alex, there’s still friction. 

Sometimes, Michael thinks that Kyle blames him for Alex not being with them.

No, strike that.

He knows that Kyle blames him for it.

“It’s my fault you’re in here,” Michael says, wiping the tears from his cheeks with the back of his knuckles. “If you weren’t, you’d go out for drinks with Kyle, you’d make him feel better. I can’t do anything. I just stood there at the funeral watching how gutted he looked, because Max couldn’t get to her in time to heal her.”

She’d died, too early, insensibly, and Alex isn’t even here to be the friend Kyle needs.

So Michael has to do it instead. “I’m gonna keep trying,” he insists, full of stubborn determination. “Take Kyle out for drinks, keep him talking, I’m gonna try and Alex Manes my way out of this one.” He presses his palm to the pod, splaying his fingers out like he can somehow take comfort and solace from the mere touch.

He knows he can’t -- that Alex can’t hear this, doesn’t know he’s here, that it’s all for Michael.

Still, it helps.

“When you get out of there, drinks with Kyle,” he insists. “Move it to the top of the list.”

* * *

_Stasis - Year Fourteen_

“I made you a new prosthetic. The old one was starting to rust.”

Michael hefts the new one in his hands as he approaches his set-up beside Alex’s pod.

He’s not sure when he decided to start thinking of it as Alex’s and not his own. It’s been fourteen years (long ones) and though Michael spent fifty in that pod, it had never really felt like his. He wonders if his mother had felt like this, waiting for him to emerge and losing her chance when she’d been locked away. He wonders, sometimes, what the plan had been. How old would Michael have been when she let him out?

Would she have still been too old? Too far gone?

They’re not repeating history, though, that’s not the point. 

He tips and turns the new prosthetic, which is lined with titanium inside the strong body of the alien ship material, which he’s molded into the shape of Alex’s leg. “The ship’s in pieces,” he tells him. “I took it apart to make this.” Hefting the weight of it in his hands, he holds his breath, feeling the importance of these next words.

Even if Alex can’t hear them, they’re critical to say.

“I know that there’s no place I want to run to, not when you’re going to get out of that thing soon. Five years,” he says. “In five years, I’m going to give you this prosthetic, you’re going to come out of that pod, and we’ll be thirty. We’ll both be thirty and have our lives ahead of us. There’s here, on this planet, not out there in the stars.” 

Michael, with his two doctorates and teaching gig. Alex, taking over Kyle’s mantle and making sure that all the pieces that make up Project Shepard are taken apart. The both of them, together, living the life that got taken from them by Jesse’s alien experiments.

He hefts the prosthetic in his hands again. 

“I’m not leaving this planet.”

There’s too much for him here. There’s no reason for him to go. There are two ways off this planet for him and Michael wants neither. He wants the one that ties him down to this place, whether it’s Roswell or the whole world, and that’s Alex.

* * *

_Stasis - Year Seventeen_

“I’m twenty-eight, Alex. I could wake you up now. I could do it.” 

He wants to. 

It’s a new battle that rages in him daily. Alex will be thirty, Michael is twenty-eight, what does a few years matter. He could pull him out now. Every ounce of him wants to pull him out. He sees happy couples at the Crashdown when he helps Liz and wants to take a kitchen knife to his heart to bleed out his own longing.

It’s not the promise he made, though, and he hates every stupid honorable bone in his body that wants to hold tight to it. He hasn’t broken a promise to Alex yet, and this isn’t the one he wants to start with.

Michael hurts, though. He’s lonely. 

Every time he sees Max brush a loving kiss to Liz’s cheek. Every time Kyle goes to Maria and she pulls him in for a comforting hug. Every time Isobel comes back from a new date, flushed and content. It aches. It lances through him and reminds him of the hole that exists in his heart, and is meant to be filled by Alex.

“I want you. I miss you.”

Alex has done so much for him since they were younger. He’s loved him in ways Michael probably didn’t deserve, sometimes, and loved him even when Michael wasn’t looking (even though he swore he’d never stop). 

Two more years. 

“When you get out of there, I’m never looking away again,” he vows, knowing that it’s a promise that needs to be made. “Because you are my family, Alex. You’re mine. In two years, I get to tell you that, and I get to be sure.” 

Two years.

For Alex, it’s worth it. For Alex, he can do it.

For him, he could do anything.

* * *

_Awakening Day_

It’s finally here. 

It’s today.

Nineteen years of waiting and it’s Michael’s thirtieth birthday, a day where he only really wants one present, but has been given plenty -- most of them to help with what’s happening today. 

“Max and Liz got me a bunch of silver for my birthday. Her old rings and earrings and necklaces, his belt buckles, dishes and silverware from their wedding, all in a box. I told them they should wait until I get hitched, but they said this was more important, that you’re more important.”

And, by extension, that Michael is just as important to them too. 

He’s wearing Alex’s leather jacket. For the most part, he looks exactly the same as he did the first time, with a few notable distinctions. His shoulders aren’t as broad, because he spent his teen years studying and not hauling around gallons of milk. His hair is controlled and careful, because girls in high school taught him how to take care of it, and he listened, plus he never really got over trying to hide how similar he looked to Michael Guerin.

His hand is undamaged. It’s not healed -- it just was never broken.

He’s happier. He knows he wouldn’t say it, but Isobel has and so has Maria. He’s had a happy family and in the last few years, a steady job teaching remotely while he waits for Alex to do his own hatching, rejoining the world to be with Michael. 

Michael coats his arm with the silver solution and steps towards the pod. 

He’s here alone, by request, promising that he’d bring Alex to visit the moment he could. Right now, Michael thinks he’d burst if he didn’t have this time with Alex on their own. Alex has been frozen in time and Michael’s been waiting, but he doesn’t have to.

Today’s the day. 

He reaches into the pod and grabs hold of Alex’s arms, takes hold of the man who’d willingly frozen himself in time for Michael, and he _pulls_ Alex out, back into the real world. The stasis is over, the waiting is done.

Alex’s first breath is a rattling, coughing thing as he slumps forward, grabbing onto Michael’s arms to hold tight, his bare foot struggling in the dusty ground to find balance, but Michael is there for him.

It’s finally time for him to be with Alex again. 

Alex is _back_ , he’s _his_ , and the overwhelming power of that thought nearly knocks Michael off his feet. 

“Hi,” says Michael, to a man he loves just as much now as he did nineteen years ago.

It blossoms with relief in his chest. He’d been so worried that something would change. He’d worried that he’d look at Alex and feel different, but that cosmic string that ties them together is still there. He still loves Alex as easily as breathing, still thinks he’s the most handsome thing in the world.

“Did you have a good nap?” Michael jokes, adjusting his hold on Alex to compensate for his absent prosthetic. 

Alex takes him in, eyes roaming over Michael’s hair, his face. He touches him from head to hip, trembling fingers leaving silver marks in their wake. For every touch, Michael closes his eyes, exhaling shakily, amazed at how Alex’s tentative touch can undo him so easily. 

The first words that Alex says to him in nineteen years:

“You waited.”

“I promised,” Michael reminds him. “You waited for me for over a decade. It was only fair to take my turn and prove how much I love you.” He’d wait nineteen more, but he doesn’t even dare say that out loud to tempt fate. Alex has fought for so long for him. It was long past time for Michael to take his turn.

Michael’s fingers are shaking, like he can’t believe he’s touching Alex again. He’s crying, but doesn’t care, his fingers skimming Alex’s warm skin as they traverse up the drying silver solution, towards his neck. Alex tips it to the side, extending the line of tendon and muscle, and Michael is guided towards him for the kiss he’s been waiting nineteen years for.

Alex breathes out against his lips, a whisper of Michael’s name, but then he buries his fingers in Michael’s close-cropped hair, scrappily fighting to get a hold as he crashes into Michael for that kiss, sobbing out his name a moment later. 

For the last nineteen years, Liz and Max have given him a family and a roof over his head.

He’s been given safe spaces to exist and learn and live and love.

And yet, something’s always been missing.

Kissing Alex, loving him, holding him in his arms, that’s what it is. Kissing Alex is like coming home, and Michael tightens his grip on him, digging his fingers into his skin to leave marks, unwilling to let him out of this cave without proving that Alex belongs to Michael and vice-versa, and the universe better be done messing with them, or else Michael’s going to have a new fight to pick.

“Let’s go home,” Michael says, laughing through his emotional sobbing laugh, because Alex is here, he’s _here_ and Michael is going to dress him and bring him back to their families. “It’s time to come home. I waited,” he says. “I waited, just like I said. I waited and I still love you. I’ll always love you.”

“I’m never gonna make you wait again,” Alex says, clutching at Michael’s hands as he helps him towards the duffel bag with all of his things -- the towels to clean him up, his new prosthetic, the fresh clothes, and the food. “I’m done waiting, Michael.”

It’s good to hear, because Michael is absolutely on the same page.

It’s time to live.

* * *

_After - Day One_

For the first time in over a decade, Michael is sharing his bed with someone else.

It’s not just anyone, it’s _Alex_. 

Michael had brought him to the Crashdown so everyone could fawn over him (once Alex had his new prosthetic in place, his leather jacket back on his shoulders, and proper clothes on). Liz and Isobel kept squeezing his cheeks (and in Isobel’s case, his ass) to praise how good he looks, and Maria had caught him up on gossip. They’d stuffed both of them with too much food while Alex tried to keep up with everything, and by midnight, Michael was so full and tired, he knew they had to leave before he couldn’t drive and wound up crashing in the room upstairs.

They’d made their escape after a few hours, taking Alex back to his house -- which had been Alex’s house, converted into Michael’s around the time he was eighteen and decided to move out of Max and Liz’s home. 

So, really, it’s _their_ home.

Michael had given Alex the tour, showing him the spaces he’s made for him -- room in the drawers, the closet, places for his food in the fridge, the space for his books and music. The hole hasn’t just been in Michael’s heart, it’s also been in his physical space, waiting for Alex to fill it.

They’d decided to do that in the morning. Alex had wanted to go to bed and Michael had no arguments. They don’t sleep, but they also don’t fuck. They’re both too tired to do anything but lazily make out, relearning one another’s bodies -- Alex learning Michael’s new body for the first time, and Michael rediscovering Alex’s after nineteen years. 

By the early hours of the morning, they’re too tired for even that. They tangle their limbs together, so close they can feel one another’s heartbeat, and talk in hushed tones, with only the moon and stars above eavesdropping on them. 

“Did you date?”

Michael shrugs, not because he doesn’t care, but there isn’t much to talk about. “Once or twice, I got really lonely, so I’d go out to dinner or drinks with someone, but I always made it clear that it would never get serious. No one ever made it past the third date.” He gives Alex a wary look, like he’s hoping that he’s not going to get mad about the other part. “There was sex, though. I wasn’t a monk.”

“We agreed that you could,” Alex admits, even if he sounds a little uneasy. “Which was a weird conversation to have with an eleven year old.” 

“Yeah,” Michael agrees with a huff of laughter. “This feels weird, too. We’re not strangers.”

“We kind of are,” Alex admits. “You had nineteen years without me. You had a whole life that I can’t wait to hear about.” 

“We’re not strangers,” Michael reiterates. “You missed a few chapters of my life this time. You didn’t have them all last time either, but that doesn’t change that I never stopped loving you. You’ve done so much for me over the years. You’ve protected me. You loved me. You had faith in me. It was my turn.”

Alex is staring at him wondrously, to the point Michael feels the flush overtake his face, bowing his head down.

“What?” he asks, not sure what he did to earn that loving look.

“You’re right,” he admits. “We’re not strangers,” Alex whispers, drifting towards him to seal that with a kiss. “Because you are still every bit the incredible man that you always were, Michael Ortecho-Evans.” He presses their foreheads together, eyes half lidded, but making Michael feel anchored and home. “I love you,” he says. 

“I love you too,” Michael responds, with the easiest call and answer he’s ever had to do in his life.

Either of them.

* * *

_After - Day Two, Hour Two_

It starts as desperate touches.

Michael’s been without him for nineteen years. Alex blinked and woke up, but he endures the crashing waves of Michael’s passionate and fervent need. “Sorry,” Michael apologizes, a few times, when he does something Alex doesn’t like. “Sorry, it’s been…”

“...a while,” Alex breathlessly fills in the blanks. “I know.” He cups Michael’s cheek to try and slow him down. 

It doesn’t work.

Alex doesn’t seem to care.

“Fuck me,” Michael pleads, when he can’t take not knowing what to do to make Alex happy. Better that he give up his control. “Please,” he begs. “Alex, please.”

He’s rewarded for that by being rolled and pinned into the bed. Alex straddles him, his hair a mess, his eyes wild, and his breath making his chest rise and fall hurriedly, before he digs his hands into Michael’s shoulders to get him fixed to the bed, sliding down his body and ignoring Michael’s pleading cries.

Luckily, Alex goes right to using his mouth to make sure Michael doesn’t care much about how he’s being brought off, just that he is and it’s _Alex_.

* * *

_After - Day Two, Hour Four_

Alex breathes out Michael’s name against his skin, grabbing at his shoulder as he presses Michael into the soft mattress, hips hitching forward in a slow, steady rhythm. When he’s deep inside of Michael, he stops, pauses, waits.

“I missed you,” Michael keens, slamming his palm into the mattress to grab the sheets, tangling them in his fingers as he rocks against the bed. “I missed you,” he breathes into the pillow.

“I’m here.”

He is, he’s here, he’s Michael’s, and he’s part of him.

Completely, at this point.

“I’m here,” Alex speaks again, biting a hard kiss into Michael’s shoulder and sucking a red mark into the skin. “I’m here,” he repeats once more, and presses his forehead to the space between Michael’s shoulders, sweaty forehead slipping against his back, as he thrusts his hips forward, one last time.

He’s here, Michael’s with him, and Alex doesn’t intend to let him forget it.

* * *

_After - Day Two, Hour Eight_

It’s a marathon session unlike any that Michael has ever had before, but even he thinks he’s done (finally). He’s aching and sore and he’d barely managed to carry Alex into the living room, but he had. 

The sheets are in the laundry, and Michael’s made breakfast for them, limping a little as he brings the tray to Alex on the couch, who’s got his tablet on his lap, skimming through news reports from the last nineteen years.

“Isobel must be heartbroken,” Alex remarks, taking the cup of coffee from Michael before making room for Michael to snuggle into his side, draping his arm around him.

“Why?” 

“T Swift, still not president.” 

Michael laughs, brighter than he has in years, and curls into Alex’s arms, kissing his bruised neck (so many hickeys, in such a short amount of time). He doesn’t want to leave his side if he can help it, wants to stay right here forever, and he rests his chin on Alex’s shoulder, staring up at him in disbelief.

Eventually, Alex catches him.

“What?” Alex whispers fondly, picking up a piece of bacon from the tray.

“You’re here,” Michael says. “Nineteen years wasn’t as long as I thought it would be, but I knew you were coming back to me. I spent so many nights in that cave at your pod. I know you didn’t hear me, that you couldn’t,” he rushes to cut Alex off, “but it still meant so much to me to share those things with you. My fears, my hopes, my worries, my longing.”

He reaches up to brush back a strand of Alex’s hair from his face, tender and shaky, like if he touches too firmly, Alex might evaporate into thin air.

“And, now you’re here. With me. I can’t wait to tell you all those things again, knowing you’ll hear them, this time.”

Alex licks the bacon grease off his fingers and reaches for Michael’s hand to lift it to his lips, kissing the dead center of his palm, pressing it to his cheek.

“I’m here to stay,” Alex says. “Don’t you forget it. We both went through too much.” 

“No more waiting,” Michael says, and he grins, because he’s never felt more hopeful. 

Hope’s not a dangerous thing, not this time around. This time, it’s what’s going to lay the foundation for the rest of their lives.

* * *

_After - Year Two_

“This is weird.”

Max has a lot of greys through his hair now, the same as Liz. Alex just turned thirty-two, but all his friends are well past their fiftieth birthdays. What’s weird is that Alex is sitting inside of Max’s home, where Michael got to grow up the second time, and it’s making Alex nervous as hell to be reminded of what he came here for. He’s taking it out on a napkin, tearing it into pieces. 

“It’s weirder if you keep dragging it out.”

He’s not wrong about that.

“You already know why I’m here. Are you seriously gonna make me say it?”

Max folds his hands over his lap and leans back in his recliner to give Alex an expectant look, which means that’s _exactly_ what Max means to do. Alex wishes he could be angrier, but deep down, he’s thrilled that Max has made himself into Michael’s father figure to this degree. 

“Can I please have your permission to propose to Michael?” 

Max presses his lips together and his lips are gently curved up, like he’s thinking about some kind of joke. Alex is nervous, though. It’s not that he thinks Max will say no, but the fact that he has to jump through these hoops at all is insane, and all because Liz implied that he better not marry her baby without at least getting Max’s permission.

Michael had shrugged. “That’s Liz for you,” he says, but the way he says it, he might as well have said _Mom_. 

“You need to protect him and love him as much as you can,” Max says. “That’s my only condition.”

Alex doesn’t say anything, only raises both brows. He’s spent years protecting Michael, and he knows that he’d been out of the game for the last nineteen, but Alex is ready to take his turn.

That’s exactly what he tells Max. “You had the last two decades,” he says, “but trust me.” With steely determination, he finishes his promise. “I’ve got him for the next five.” Six, if he’s lucky, but he’ll start modestly. 

That seems to do the trick.

Max smiles, the lines around his eyes crinkling and betraying his age. “Do you need a ring?”

Alex shakes his head. “I’ve had one since we were all twenty-nine,” he promises, hand over his heart where the ring lies in a velvet pouch in the pocket of his coat. “Some questions have been a very, very long time coming.”

Luckily, this question only has to simmer for another night at most.

It’s long overdue and with Max’s permission, Alex finally gets to ask.

* * *

_After - Year Three_

“Tell me the story again, Uncle Alex?”

“Of course little bean,” he says softly, brushing back the hair of Rosa’s daughter as her lashes flutter against her cheek, fighting to stay awake so she can earn her story. 

She doesn’t make it to the end. 

By the time Alex talks about the prince slaying the dragon and ascending the stairs to wake his true love, Ana’s out like a light. Her little mouth is open and she clutches tight to her little alien stuffie (care of Michael). Alex tucks her in, pressing a kiss to the top of her head, noticing that the sliver of light from the cracked door now has a shadow obscuring it.

Alex glances up and grins when he catches his very own prince watching him.

Finger to his lips to shush him, he creeps out and gently closes the door so they won’t wake Ana, but he does let Michael tug him towards his body, kissing his way from the peek of collarbone that Alex’s v-neck sweater reveals up towards his jaw. 

“You know,” Michael murmurs, his lips soft against Alex’s neck, “in this story, you’re Sleeping Beauty.” He’s been clean-shaven since Alex awoke from the pod. Michael had explained that he’d kept it that way since he hit puberty for the second time. 

It sets his lives apart. It makes things different.

Michael keeps swaying, tugging Alex in towards him. “That makes me the prince who woke you up with true love’s kiss."

Alex keeps a tight hold on Michael’s arms, but backs away to give his fiance a dubious look, even if he absolutely agrees that Michael is his alien prince in shimmering pink armor. “You woke me up with a special silver solution that you brewed from Liz’s notes. You didn’t kiss me awake,” he whispers. “That counts against your princely honor.”

Michael presses his hand over his heart. 

“Then let me begin to make that up to you, my fair princess.”

“No princess here,” Alex insists. 

“Still my sleeping beauty,” Michael guarantees, and starts with one true love’s kiss to make up for the one he didn’t wake Alex up with. “My waking beauty.”

He presses the second kiss to Alex’s lips. 

“My Alex,” Michael breathes out. “You should tell her our story. It’s way more romantic than Sleeping Beauty.”

Alex moans into the third kiss. “You tell her. It’s your turn to tell a bedtime story tomorrow night. You tell her the tale of how you waited patiently for your lost love.” The fourth kiss comes with a hand to the small of Alex’s back to grab him flush against Michael’s body. 

They need to move, because doing this outside of Ana’s room won’t end well.

The fifth kiss comes with Michael’s hand groping Alex’s ass, belying that fear.

“Oh,” Michael murmurs, with kiss number six. “I will. I’ll tell everyone all about our happily ever after, staring with her.”

* * *

_After - The Rest of Their Lives_

“Hey. Sing our song?” Michael pleads softly, from where he’s lying upside down, writing bars of music as Alex plays around with a song and Michael notates for him. It’s a good distraction from wedding planning, meddling relatives, overly nosy friends, and the wedding planner that he wishes Isobel hadn’t conned him into hiring.

Music calms the noise in his mind, and Alex’s music does the trick.

“The old one?”

Michael nods his confirmation, squirming so he can roll onto his stomach, watching Alex from where he’s lying on the ground. His hair is finally growing out again (because Alex had mournfully mentioned how much he misses Michael’s curls) and a few strands of curly hair fall into his vision. 

Alex reaches out to push them back, then settles the guitar in his lap as he plays a few chords, singing a song that should be sad and soft, but means so much more to them now. 

“If it takes forever,” he murmurs, lyrics as he stares at Michael, “I will wait for you. T’il I hear you sigh, here in my arms.” 

Michael doesn’t let him get through the whole song. He presses his palm over Alex’s on the guitar strings, the chord going twangy with the sudden stop, but as much as Michael loves their song, it doesn’t mean the same thing as it did all those years ago. 

The waiting is done.

It’s time for living.

“I think,” Michael says, drifting up towards Alex and letting his breath softly exhale over his lips, “that we need a new song.” 

Alex licks his lips, his eyes fixed on Michael’s. “Okay,” he says, tipping his head to the side and darting tentatively forward, closing some of the distance between them, though not all of it. “I’ll write us one.” 

“And I’ll love it,” Michael vows, “just as much as I love you.”

That promise made, he pushes the guitar gently out of the way and cups Alex’s face so he can press him back to the floor and kiss him. He kisses him the way he’s wanted to kiss him every day of those patient nineteen years, the way he’d thought about when Alex went to war, the kisses he dreamed about when he was seventeen, and the way he longs to kiss Alex each and every morning of their happy new life.

He kisses him and the rest of the world melts away. 

He doesn’t have to wait to love Alex, not a second longer, and he never intends to take that for granted, not for a single moment.


End file.
